ForageQuest

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  Margaret, the 'hippie lady of the woods'

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  Garlic item

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  Cooking station texture

Inspiration

We were inspired by classic pixel platformers like Celeste and beloved games with cooking and crafting mechanics like Minecraft. We also wanted to cater to our unique interests and aptitudes, with one of us being a talented pixel artist going in to the hackathon.

What it does

Our software is a game designed to introduce younger people to the concept of foraging through a short, fun platformer level in which a traveling chef collects edible materials, avoids dangerous ones, and cooks meals for the NPCs they find along the way.

How we built it

We built this software with one person as the designated coder and one person as the designated pixel artist, communicating over Discord in calls and direct messages to show off what we've accomplished every so often. The pixel artist would e-mail the coder sprites they made, and the coder would implement the sprites into the game as well as the functionality.

Challenges we ran into

We ran into several glitches, such as the death screen showing up at random times and character dialogue not functioning correctly. We also ran into challenges in communication as we had to send art and demonstrations of code while several miles away from each other instead of while in the same room.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

The first accomplishment we were proud of was the moment we finally figured out the storage of variables across the entire game, not just in single objects, as that system is kind of confusing in GDevelop 5. This allowed us to use ingredients and show how many of some thing the character has picked up. We're also very proud of signing up and committing at all, considering that neither of us have participated in a hackathon before.

What we learned

Our primary coder, Kinley, learned the basics of a new coding and game making platform. Our primary pixel artist, Jude, learned how to make pixel art well with restricted space. We also learned basic principles of game design and the feedback-revision process through both our own exploration and the expert-led workshops.

What's next for ForageQuest

We plan to refine ForageQuest in the future, and as we gain better understanding of the software we're coding on and the computational concepts we employed, we intend to streamline and lengthen it into at least a sizeable game, with unique levels and much more textures for both dangerous and edible plants. We also intend to add back some features we had to scrap in development, like a field guide with every plant the character encounters in their chef journey.

Built With

• gdevelop5